Earlier today California officials announced a tentative deal to resolve the state’s years-long prison overcrowding crisis. At the same time, Stanford University researchers released a report suggesting that an important part of the solution may reside in Proposition 36, the 2012 ballot initiative which allowed for the release of some of the state’s “Three Strikes” prisoners.

The Three Strikes law, passed in 1994, mandated a life sentence for anyone who committed a felony, no matter how minor, after committing two “serious” felonies, which could be anything from purse-snatching to murder. More than 9,000 inmates have been incarcerated under the law. But Californians slowly lost their appetite for harsh sentencing, and last year voted overwhelmingly in favor of Prop 36, which permits an inmate whose third strike was a non-serious, nonviolent offense to petition for early release. The new law does not cover anyone convicted of murder, rape or child molestation, nor does it reach the state’s more than 30,000 “Two Strikers,” who have committed a felony of any kind after committing one serious felony.
Opponents of the measure warned that violent crime would go up, but according to the report issued Monday by Stanford Law School’s Three Strikes Project in conjunction with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, less than two percent of the more than 1,000 inmates released so far under Prop 36 have been re-arrested for a new offense, and none for a serious, violent offense. In comparison, 16 percent of all other state prisoners are re-arrested for a new offense within 90 days of their release, and 27 percent within six months. (The average Prop 36er, as they’re called, has been out of prison only four and a half months.)

The low recidivism rate is notable for two reasons. First, Prop 36ers get none of the post-release assistance provided to all other state inmates. Those released on probation or parole, the report said, receive around $6,000 in re-entry services, which include housing and employment assistance as well as substance abuse treatment. Prop 36ers get, at best, $200 in “gate money,” which is meant to get them from the prison doors to a home somewhere, even if no one is prepared to take them in.

Second, it drives home how often the Three Strikes law had nothing to do with protecting the public from supposedly dangerous criminals. Prop 36 requires a judge to determine in every case whether an inmate seeking early release is a threat to public safety, and yet the vast majority of inmates whose requests have been considered have been released.

Given such individualized risk assessments, the researchers say, prison populations can be cut even further without jeopardizing public safety. Among the top candidates for release are the more than 2,000 Three Strikers who have yet to have their petitions considered, and the more than half of Two Strikers whose second offense was non-serious and nonviolent.

The researchers added that the state has already saved $12.5 million as a result of Prop 36. But Gov. Jerry Brown and other top state officials continue to insist that there are no more prisoners who are safe to let out early.

“We are not going to release a single additional prisoner,” California Assembly Speaker John A. Perez said last month.

California remains under a federal court order to cut its population by 9,600 more inmates by the end of 2013, following a Supreme Court ruling in 2011 that the state’s prisons were so overcrowded — near double design capacity in some cases — that they violated inmates’ constitutional rights.

Gov. Brown has said he would meet the goal by moving inmates to county jails throughout the state, and to private prisons in California and other states. On Monday, he announced a deal with legislators that would provide more funding for inmate rehabilitation services if the federal court is willing to grant a deadline extension.

The evidence from the Prop 36 study strongly suggests that there are thousands of inmates who could be released immediately at minimal risk to the public. The question is when California’s elected officials will let go of their prison fixation and listen.